Sante and Kenneth Kimes Trial: 2000

On July 5, 1998, the Kimeses were arrested on an entirely separate matter. An outstanding warrant for them had been issued in Utah on the charge of using a bad check to buy the Lincoln Towncar. When police searched the car, they found an odd assortment of evidence: two loaded pistols, a. 9 millimeter and a. 22 caliber; several wigs and fright masks; a set of plastic handcuffs; and abopt $30,000 in cash. A container of a pink liquid that later turned out to be a so-called "date rape" drug was also found, along with a box that had once contained a stun gun. Silverman's keys were in the pockets of Kenneth Kimes. The phony Social Security card and the forged deed to the property were also in the car.

Several hours after the arrest on the check charge, police connected the Kimeses with the report that Silverman was missing. On searching their apartment, a number of other incriminating pieces of evidence turned up. Several taped telephone calls, apparently from a wiretap, contained Silverman's conversations. Notes and lists appeared to suggest that the Kimeses had planned a crime.

Los Angeles authorities wanted to extradite the Kimeses in connection with the murder of David Kazdin in March 1998, and in the mysterious disappearance of a vagrant they had hired to work at their home there. Kazdin was found dead in a trash bin near the L.A. airport. However, the New York district attorney's office decided to proceed with a murder charge against Sante and Kenneth Kimes, even though they could not find Irene Silverman's body and police had no blood or other physical evidence of a murder.